They Look.....

I once consulted my culture expert on all things Jewish (okay, when I occasionally bump into her on google-chat) about ways she would like to be perceived. I once asked, "Besides Judaism being a religion, would you consider being Jewish a race?" [I always proceed these type of questions with, "Do you mind if I ask you a dumb question?]

She said yes, she herself would consider being Jewish a race as well as a religion.

The following occurred Saturday night, on a drive home. The lot across the street from us has been for sale for many years. And Wifey and I both saw cars parked next to it as they people climbed (it's above street level, very difficult to build on and thus will take a very creative home builder to build on it) up the lot and walked around it with the realtor.

Wifey: "I saw some people checking out the lot today."

Me: "Yeah, me too."

Wifey: "They looked Jewish"

Me: "Wha? What do you mean they looked Jewish?"

Wifey:" "You know....dark hair and"

Me: "Oh my God are you going to say hooked nose?"

Wifey: "Well, yeah. It's true"

Me: "That is so racist. I can't believe that you would say that a Jewish person has a big nose."

Wifey: "Well, it's true and that's not racist. Sorry, but Robin is Jewish and she looks...you know Jewish. She's got dark hair and a big nose"

Me: "Argh! Not all Jews look like Robin. You can't just look at someone and say you look Jewish. And why do you have to say the person climbing the wall looks Jewish? That's so bigoted"

Wifey: "No it's not. It's like if I said someone was Asian or someone was Hispanic climbing the wall"
(Wifey's mother would probably say, "I saw someone Mexican climbing the lot.")

Me: "Argh!"

And then we dropped it because we were arguing about this in front of the kids.

And why wouldn't my white-bread wife from the solid midwest say something like, "I saw someone climbing the lot today. They looked Methodist."